This thesis examines a set of three utterance particles—ge3, laak3, and lo1—in Hong Kong Cantonese in terms of evidentiality, epistemic modality, and mirativity. Cantonese utterance particles have long been studied; however, close investigation of evidentiality and mirativity on a small set of particles is relatively rare. Previous accounts claim that ge3 and laak3 convey certainty. On the other hand, linguists also claim that the use of the utterance particle lo1 assumes a high level of knowledge from a hearer. This thesis has two main purposes: to untangle the differences between the utterance particles ge3 and laak3 in terms of epistemic modality and evidentiality and to reveal the mirative meanings of the utterance particle lo1. I postulate that the utterance particle ge3 conveys both epistemic modality and evidentiality. For epistemic modality, ge3 concerns a speaker’s knowledge. The evidential meaning—access to prior knowledge—is realized through implicature. This pragmatic reading is highly context dependent. In contrast, the utterance particle laak3 conveys only epistemic modality which concerns a state of affairs and signifies a change of state. Lastly, this study also reveals that the utterance particle lo1 has mirative values of sudden realization and counterexpectation under certain conversational contexts.

Incel-rörelsen blir allt mer uppmärksammad av media och forskare världen över. Gruppen associeras med ensamma unga män som begår våldsdåd och riktar hat mot kvinnor. Det relativt nya forskningsfältet om incels domineras av granskningar av dem som ett kollektiv och en sub­kultur. Forskarna undersöker sällan konsekvenserna av rörelsens språkbruk och handlingar gentemot kvinnor på ett djupgående plan. Syftet med den här studien är att utforska incel-rörelsens syn på kvinnor, kvinnohat och våld. Det empiriska materialet som studien bygger på består av konversationer och inlägg hämtade från det webb-baserade diskussionsforumet incels.is. Analysen utgår från kritisk diskursanalys med Faircloughs tredimensionella analys­modell som utgångspunkt. Den kritiska diskursanalysen fungerar även som teoretiskt ramverk i studien, tillsammans med genusteorier om hegemonisk maskulinitet och Hirdmans (1988) genus­system, samt begreppen eko-kammare och stigma. Resultatet visar att kommunikationen i forumet karaktäriseras av snedvridna uppfattningar av kön och jämställdhet, där kvinnohat förekommer i allra högsta grad. Diskussionerna präglas av misogynt språkbruk och avhumaniserande kvinnoskildringar, samtidigt som incels framställer sig själva som offer. Deras upplevda offerskap kan kopplas till positionen som underordnad maskulinitet, en roll som väcker frustration, som i forumet riktas mot kvinnor. Kommunikationen antyder att incels vill återerövra maktpositionen de anser sig ha berövats då kvinnor konkurrerar om samma utrymme i en könshierarki. Studien visar att det råder splittrade uppfattningar om kvinnor i forumet. Kvinnor gestaltas dels som makthavare och dels som objektifierande undermänniskor. Värderingarna som delas i forumet går att koppla till äldre kvinnofientliga värderingar som ämnar begränsa kvinnors rättig­heter och legitimerar våld mot kvinnor. / The Incel movement is currently experiencing increasing global attention from the media and in research. Incel is a term associated with lonely, misogynistic young men and violent acts against women. The research about this relatively new phenomenon is dominated by reviews of incels as a community and a subculture. Studies rarely present any thoroughly examinations of how the movement's actions and language affect women. This study aims to explore incels views of women, misogyny and violence. The data consists of posts published on the web-based forum incels.is. Fairclough’s three-dimensional analysis model is the main analytical frame­work, performed with critical discourse analysis as theoretical framework. Additionally, the critical discourse analysis is accompanied by gender theories of hegemonic masculinity and Hirdman’s (1998) gender system, as well as the theoretical concepts of eco-chambers and stigma. Our analysis shows that incels communication is characterized by distorted perceptions of gender and equality, where the presence of misogynistic beliefs is vastly noticeable. The discussions are characterized by misogynistic language and dehumanizing depictions of women, and victimized representations of incels themselves. Their self-proclaimed victim­ization can be linked to the subordinate position of masculinity, which raises a frustration that affects incels conversations about women. Incel’s communication implies that they want to regain a position of power, which they consider themselves to have lost, since women compete for the same hierarchical positions as them. In the forum, incel portrays women as matriarchs, but also as objectified sub humans. This representation shows that incels perception of women is shattered. According to the analysis, the values that incels express in the forum can be linked to older misogynistic beliefs that aims to limit women's rights and legitimizes violence against women.

The world in which we live is filled with sensory experiences. Language provides us with a manner in which to communicate these experiences with one another. In order to partake in this communication, it is necessary to acquire labels for things we see, hear, feel, smell, and taste. Much is known about how we learn words for things we can see, but this bias in the literature leaves many open questions about words attributed to other modalities. This cumulative dissertation aims to close this gap by investigating how both 10- to-12-month old infants and adults map novel pseudowords onto environmental sounds in an auditory associative word learning task with the aim to explore how humans learn words for things that cannot be seen, such as thunder, siren, and, lullaby. Infants were found, via event-related potentials (ERPs), to be successful at auditory associative word learning, while adults are much stronger learners in multimodal audio-visual conditions. Across the lifespan, sensory modality was found to affect word learning differently in infants than in adults. Where infants benefitted from unimodal auditory word learning, adults were more successful in multimodal audiovisual paradigms. Furthermore, the modality of the object being labelled modulated the temporal onset and the topological distribution of the N400 ERP component of violated lexical-semantic expectation. Lastly, the temporal congruency of presented stimuli affected word learning in adults in an inverted manner to other forms of statistical learning. Word learning is sensitive to age, modality, and means of presentation, providing evidence for various intertwined learning mechanisms and bringing us a step closer towards understanding human linguistic cognition.

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No description available.

The purpose of this study was to determine the relative efficacy of cueing modalities employed in Integral Stimulation (IS) treatment for childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). Previous literature has supported the use of IS for children with CAS, though there are no studies that evaluate the active ingredients of IS. This study aimed to examine the efficacy of single- and multi-modality cues in IS treatment. The experiment was administered as a single-case, alternating treatments design consisting of three conditions (auditory-only, visual-only, and simultaneous auditory and visual). Two participants with CAS received IS treatment in every condition during each session. Probes were administered prior to starting every other session (once per week), consisting of practiced and control targets that were balanced for complexity and functionality. Perceptual accuracy of productions was rated on a 3-point scale and standardized effect sizes were calculated for each condition. Each participant demonstrated different effects in regard to modality and treatment effects. The visual-only condition yielded the greatest effect for one participant, followed by the auditory-only cues. The other participant displayed no significant effects in any condition nor a treatment effect. The results of this study suggest that single-modality cues may be more beneficial for some children with CAS than the clinically used simultaneous auditory-visual multi-modality cue. The significant effect of the visual-only condition in one participant indicates that visual-only cues may bypass an impaired auditory feedback system and support speech motor learning, though more research is required. / Public Health

<p>There is longstanding interpretive dispute between commentators over Spinoza’s commitment to <i>necessitarianism</i>, the doctrine that all things are metaphysically necessary and none are contingent. Those who affirm Spinoza’s commitment to the doctrine adhere to <i>the necessitarian interpretation</i> whereas those who deny it adhere to what I call <i>the semi-necessitarian interpretation</i>. As things stand, the disagreement between commentators appears to have reached an impasse. Notwithstanding, there seems to be no disagreement among commentators on the question of necessitarianism’s philosophical plausibility as a metaphysical view: the doctrine is wildly untenable. This consensus view is more relevant to the interpretive debate than few have recognized, since leading semi-necessitarian commentators take the doctrine’s alleged absurdity to be one of the most compelling reasons (if not <i>the</i> most compelling reason) to prefer their reading over the necessitarian interpretation: for, as a matter of methodological principle, great philosophers like Spinoza should not be ascribed ridiculous views in the absence of better evidence. </p> <p>This dissertation seeks to defend Spinoza’s commitment to necessitarianism on both the interpretive and philosophical fronts. I argue not only that the necessitarian interpretation of Spinoza is more plausible than the semi-necessitarian interpretation on textual grounds, but that Spinoza’s necessitarianism is a serviceable philosophical view whose tenability has been almost entirely overlooked and perfunctorily rejected. The principal basis upon which I build this defense is Spinoza’s rich and fascinating view of essences—what I simply refer to as his <i>essentialism</i>. Spinoza’s essentialism forms the bedrock of his metaphysics and is significant not least because it underlies and informs doctrines like his necessitarianism. Spinoza’s essentialism supplies resources to answer not just interpretive problems associated with necessitarianism, but philosophical challenges to the plausibility of the doctrine. My defense of Spinoza’s necessitarianism on philosophical grounds also offers a novel way of getting past much of the current interpretive impasse among commentators by effectively undercutting the methodological motivation for the semi-necessitarian reading. In addition to my defense on the interpretive front, then, my defense on the philosophical front provides supplementary reason to <i>a fortiori</i> favor the necessitarian reading of Spinoza.</p>

Cross modality matching is a magnitude matching procedure, developed to study the relationships between sensory modalities. Auditory and visual sensory integration can be examined through cross modality matching of brightness and loudness. Brightness and loudness are natural correlates of one another as they both represent the parameter of intensity for their respective sensory modalities. Past studies have demonstrated that typical individuals tend to match brighter lights with louder sounds and dimmer lights with softer sounds. The current study utilized a modified cross modality matching procedure, combined with electroencephalography (EEG) data, to examine the cortical response to sensory integration. It was hypothesized that the response latency and cortical distribution of the EEG data would show differences between matched and unmatched conditions of light and sound stimuli. Light and sound stimuli were presented to 10 participants (five males and five females between the ages of 18 and 28 years) in a forced choice paradigm. The behavioral responses, reaction times, and EEG data were recorded for each patient. Results demonstrated that there were significant differences in behavioral reaction time among the stimulus conditions. However, reaction times were only significantly faster for the loudest sound paired with the brightest light. No other pairs of matched stimuli resulted in faster reaction times. Event related potentials (ERPs) were identified for matched and unmatched stimulus conditions. No differences were identified in latency of the ERPs among conditions. Additionally, source localization revealed that dipole locations for each stimulus condition remained relatively constant in the prefrontal cortex. As the prefrontal cortex has been found to be associated with decision-making and sensory integration, it can be concluded that sensory integration did occur. However, the processing of sensory information did not change for matched or unmatched conditions of light and sound.

A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science / This thesis examines how emotion is conveyed in music from different eras, and attempts to reconcile differences between psychological and music-theoretical approaches. Chapter 1 introduces the concepts embodied by the two manuscripts within this thesis. Chapters 2 and 3 describe two separate but related complimentary research projects. Chapter 2, entitled “Breaking with Common Practice: Exploring Modernist Musical Emotion”, compares perceived emotion in prelude sets by D. Shostakovich, F. Chopin, and J.S. Bach. This work seeks to clarify the relationship between historic changes in music’s structure and conveyed emotion, particularly in the twentieth century–which remains largely unexplored. Building on previous work, we used commonality analysis to break down the unique and joint contributions of various cues to perceived emotion and provide insight into their changing roles in the twentieth century. The work described in Chapter 3, “Cleaning up our work: Applying decision hygiene to analysis of musical structure”, was inspired by previous attempts in diverse fields (e.g., medicine, judicial sentencing) to resolve unwarranted disagreement, and used a novel procedure to distinguish genuine disagreement from disagreement that is not reflective of true differences of opinion amongst music theorists. Unlike other fields involving judgement, individual theorists’ unique perspectives are valuable. Therefore, rather than forcing inauthentic agreement, our procedure clarified and enhanced individual perspectives in musical analysis. Taken together, the research described in Chapters 2 and 3 bridge the gap between epistemologically different approaches to disseminating musical knowledge–cognition and theory. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / Music’s expressive capabilities has inspired scholarship from psychology, music theory, musicology, and philosophy for centuries. Although research in psychology has produced consensus about how certain musical elements contribute to its emotional meaning, musicological research shows that music’s structure evolved across history. Little research has explored emotional communication in music from the twentieth century, raising important questions about how emotion is conveyed in the music of our time. This oversight may contribute to continuing disagreement between music psychologists and music theorists on how music’s structure affects its perceived meaning. Thus, by bridging the gap between theory and cognition, this thesis aims to: (i) shed light on the role of music’s evolving structure–particularly in the twentieth century–on perceived emotion; and (ii) reduce error in music analysis while preserving valuable differences in theorists’ perspectives through applying a novel method inspired by optimized decision-making procedures.

There is a requirement for English teachers in Sweden to adapt their teaching to align with the policy documents advocating to foster the students' continuous and lifelong learning. This study aims to address in what way the participating teachers work to create engaging learning environments and lessons that promote communication and cooperation. Furthermore, the study explores which methods the participating teachers use to differentiate instructions and make adaptations to teacher practices and materials to successfully reach each individual student. The data was gathered by conducting qualitative semi-structured interviews with four 7-9 English teachers. The interviews were focused on four main themes: (1) Adaptations for differentiated learning through multi-modality, (2) Adaptations for differentiated learning through the bi-lingual approach, (3) Adaptations for differentiated learning through cooperative learning and (4) Adaptations for differentiated learning through other practices. Based on the guidelines provided by The Swedish National Agency for Education, findings from previous research, and the data collected in this study, it becomes evident that teachers must adopt their teaching in various ways. The adaptation of teaching strategies and practices include ways to effectively engage all of their individual groups of students, as well as the utilization of visual aids, bi-lingual instructional practices, comprehensible input and output, and cooperative learning methods. The results show that these are important ways to differentiate instruction and enhance learning to support the students’ academic and cognitive growth. The presented teacher practices can aid teachers to use differentiated instruction in accordance with the needs of their individual groups of students, both in terms of classes and the individual students within those classes.